A black box program is one in which you have no idea of how the trade signals are derived. A gray(grey) box is one in which you are given some idea of how the box produces its signals, e.g., a moving average crossover setup control, triggered by a rate of change that exceeds some figure. The actual moving average types, periods, rate of change velocity, are not revealed. Then there are the fully disclosed systems that provide the complete details of their operation. Whether or not they are auto-traded or not is another subject as you can have end-of-day and intra-day systems of all three types. Jack